When Siri Comes To Your Mac, You’ll Be Able To Control iTunes Using Your Voice

Apple’s clearly very proud of Siri, and so despite its shortcomings, it’s unlikely you’ll see it disappearing anytime soon. In fact, it’s more likely that you’ll be seeing Siri a lot more in future. It seems inevitable that the voice-controlled assistant will one day come to the Mac, and when it does, there’s a chance you’ll be able to control iTunes using only your voice.

At least that’s what Apple’s latest patent filing suggests.

Discovered by PatentlyApple, an Apple patent entitled “Electronic Devices with Voice Command and Contextual Data Processing Capabilities” describes how voice commands will one day allow us to control our Mac and iOS devices remotely. Siri already does that on the latest iOS devices, but your Mac doesn’t… yet.

As Apple’s patent explains:

The electronic device may process voice commands locally or voice commands processing may be performed remotely. For example, the electronic device may transmit one or more recorded voice commands and associated contextual information to computing equipment such as a desktop computer.

It doesn’t just mention a “desktop computer,” either; it goes even deeper than that, explaining how iTunes could be controlled using voice commands:

A media playback application on a computer such as the iTunes program of Apple Inc. may take an appropriate action in response to an uploaded voice command and associated contextual data. As an example, the media playback application may present a user with recommended songs for purchase. The songs that are recommended may be songs that are similar to the song that was playing on the electronic device when the user captured the audio clip voice command “find more like this.”

Presumably, there’s only so much you could do with Siri when it comes to iTunes, because once you’re music has started playing — unless you’re using headphones — Siri won’t be able to hear a word you’re saying. Having said that, if there’s one company that can find a solution to that problem, it’s Apple.

While patents are never a guarantee of things to come, they are evidence of the work Apple it’s doing within the walls of its Cupertino headquarters. I think we can all agree that we expected Siri to come to the Mac one day, and this patent proves Apple is already looking at how we’ll control our favorite apps with it.